Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly proposed a trilateral summit with US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy excluded from the talks.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the proposed meeting was raised during a phone call with Trump on October 9, citing a former Russian intelligence officer familiar with the discussions. According to the report, the summit could be held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November in Shenzhen, China.
The call also resulted in an agreement allowing Moscow to sell diesel on the international market.
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said early Monday that discussions about a meeting had taken place, though it remained unclear whether it had been finalised. He added that the president had made his position clear, according to Reuters.
“The president is open to anything that he can do to help bring a war to an end, if it's possible, and we'll continue to look for opportunities to do that,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to Uzbekistan.
The development comes as tensions grow between Ukraine and the US, Kyiv's largest military supporter. A series of decisions by the Trump administration over the past week has renewed concerns about Washington's reliability as Ukraine's most crucial military ally. The moves have also unsettled European partners and drawn criticism from within Trump's own Republican Party.
Over the weekend, Trump defended his decision to temporarily suspend sanctions on Russian diesel exports. On October 18, he also issued an executive order waiving new Russia-related sanctions under legislation introduced by the late Senator Lindsey Graham.
Trump and Zelenskyy have exchanged criticism over efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has accused the Ukrainian president of being unwilling to pursue peace, while Zelenskyy has warned that Washington's decision to ease sanctions on Russia could prolong the conflict.
In a post on X, Zelenskyy said that ″the decision to undo all of this, to block all of it, seems wrong to me.”
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The escalation comes amid another round of overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying Moscow fired 16 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and the surrounding region, alongside more than 200 drones targeting locations across the country.
In a post on X on Monday, Zelenskyy said the attacks damaged more than 10 energy infrastructure facilities, disrupting electricity supplies to at least 550,000 households. He added that Ukraine had once again received no prior warning from its partners about the missile strikes. The attacks also caused casualties and damaged a medical clinic, a school, a metro station and several residential buildings.
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